Exam 10: Emotion and Cognition

Patients with damage to a region of the brain that supports emotional influence on decisions tend to make poor decisions, despite being able to process situations rationally.

Which of the following statements about depression and cognition is NOT supported by research discussed in your textbook?

In a study by Cahill and colleagues (1994), researchers gave half of the participants a drug while the others received a placebo. They found that the drug interfered with memory for details of an emotionally intense story, relative to the placebo, but had no effect on memory for details of a neutral story. What did the drug used in this study do?

According to the somatic marker hypothesis, people form stronger memories of events that were marked by bodily arousal.

Which of the following best summarizes the findings of research on flashbulb memories?

In the trolley dilemma, participants must decide whether to flip a switch that will divert a trolley, saving five people's live but killing one person. In the footbridge dilemma, participants must decide whether to push a large wrestler into the path of a trolley, killing that wrestler but saving the lives of five people who would otherwise have been hit. When researchers compare participants' responses to these two dilemmas, what do they find?

Which of the following emotion states has been found to promote creative thinking?

Western philosophy has long been skeptical of emotions, often proposing that rational logic is a better basis for decision-making. Some emotion theorists have argued, in contrast, that emotions are necessary for making good decisions. Do you think that, in general, emotions are good or bad for human decision-making? You may also argue that emotions are mostly helpful in one kind of circumstance, but mostly harmful in another (be specific about each kind of circumstance if this is your thesis). Support your argument with at least three empirical study findings discussed in class or in your textbook.

Which of the following best summarizes the affect infusion model (Forgas, 1995) relating emotion to cognition?

Which of the following proposes that emotional arousal enhances the consolidation of memories for events that happened during or just before the arousal?

As a general rule, people in a happy mood are more likely to make decisions based on careful, logical reasoning than those in a sad mood.

Which of the following best summarizes the proposed Yerkes-Dodson law, described in your textbook?

In studies examining people's memory for a long battery of photographs, which factor best predicted the likelihood that a photo would be remembered by most people?

The research evidence on emotion and memory suggests that moderate increases in facilitate memory encoding.

Summarize the "tag and capture hypothesis" discussed in your textbook, and describe one study that supports this hypothesis.

Which of the following has NOT been documented as an effect of seeing an emotionally intense image, according to your textbook?

In the process of being retrieved from storage, memories can be changed, so memory is different after retrieval than before retrieval.

The term "cognition" is an umbrella term that covers several more specific processes, including attention, memory, reasoning, and decision-making. Describe one study finding relating emotion to each of these aspects of cognition, described in class or in your textbook.

Evidence suggests that, when making a moral decision, people typically make their decision based on emotions and then find logical reasons to justify that decision, rather than basing the decision on logic.

Belinda makes a quick stop at the grocery store on the way home from work, in order to pick up a few items. She carries her keys into the store, and in her rush she almost puts them down in order to reach up for an item on a high shelf. In a flash, however, she imagines leaving the keys on the grocery shelf, forgetting them, and getting back to her car only to realize she has lost her keys. The thought is so unpleasant that she carefully puts the keys in her purse instead. This example illustrates which of the following theoretical models?